The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch

Apparently, "Gangnam Style" Was a Sign of the Apocalypse All Along

Weekly Rangers, it's time to introduce yourselves to a new brand of crazy: YouTube prophets!

William Tapley has been prophesying on YouTube since 2008, where he's spouted all manner of crazy theories about the apocalypse, Barack Obama, something called Godtube, and has a video entitled "IF YOU USE CONDOMS YOU WILL NOT BE RAPTURED." Somewhere, a public access television station is missing their Sunday morning, 9 to 10 a.m. programming hour.

In any case, Tapley seems to have carved out a comfortable niche as a man who sees doom in everything, and is characterizing himself as a prophet — and last year, he called out the K-Pop sensation "Gangnam Style" (which we at the Weekly will take credit for popularizing, because Dan Gibson was all over that shiz before it blew up) for heralding the coming of the Anti-Christ.

No, really.

Now, in the tradition of such long-running, beloved posts, such as the review of Pooping in Reverse (or as I reflect upon it, "what the hell is that man doing with a doll in his pubes oh god oh god"), we bring a live blog of "The Antichrist Arrives Gangnam Style!" Watch the video below, and read my commentary after the jump.

0:15: "I'm William Tapley, also known as the third eagle of the apocalypse..." I'll buy a beer for anyone who names their fantasy football team "The Third Eagle of the Apocalypse." Promise.

0:22: "...and incidently, someone who called the last two elections of the United States 100 percent correct. Can you name any other so-called prophet on YouTube who did the same?" No, but I can't name any other YouTube prophets.

0:26: "I didn't think so." My word, it's like he's an old white male version of Dora the Explorer! But seriously, it's not that difficult to have called those elections — McCain was tanked by a poor campaign, a terrible running mate-turned-reality show star and the first black candidate with a real chance; Romney seemed incredibly out of touch, and the public saw right through him. It doesn't take Miss Cleo (another prophet!) to nail that one.

1:15: Hey, we're getting into numerology now. That didn't take long, as Tapley notes that election day fell on Nov. 6 — a sign of the Antichrist! Apparently, God conspired to force man to change the calendars a number of times using Roman emperors and leap days because he knew that 2012 years after his son's birth (give or take), a black man would herald the end of the world.

1:55: Here's the meat of the video, finally: "He is announcing the Antichrist through popular music." Pfft. Old news. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Tiny Tim and Donnie & Marie did that way before Psy burst on the scene.

3:07: The argument for Gangnam Style and Call Me Maybe to be God's warning sirens? They're family videos! "Unlike in Madonna or Lady Gaga videos, I see very little nudity, very little sexual perversion, very little Satanism...and I don't hear any swear words." Well, one of them is in Korean, while the other is a teen pop tune that ends with the swerve that the guy she wants to call her is gay, so at least Tapley is cool with gays in family settings, apparently.

4:18: And here's the crazy! "The three most common words in Gangnam Style are 'oppan gangam [sic] style' and if you put those into English, i believe the words we want to study are 'open gangland style'" Considering that the Antichrist is a lawless figure that's all style and no substance apparently, makes sense. Sure you have to focus on loose homonyms and ignore that "gangnam" is a word that means "south of the river" in Korean (thanks, Google!) but who has time to understand other cultures when the apocalypse is nigh, right?

5:05: Woop, we're getting into Call Me Maybe now. "There are four very significant phrases in this song: 'Hey, I just met you', 'this is crazy'..." You got that right.

6:25: "...but here's my number' — and I think it should be obvious what the Antichrist's number is — his number is 666, and he's not talking about a telephone number here, but the number of the beast, which he is going to give to every one of us." Perfect.

6:50 "He's not saying call me on the telephone. What the Antichrist is saying here is 'My name is Maybe'." AMBIGUITY IS THE AMORPHOUS, BLOBBY SHAPE OF THE DEVIL.

7.24: "These two words for the Antichrist, Mabus and Maybe, are not identical, but they are very similar...and I know that some people say that Obama is the Antichrist and they say that the "b", "a" and "m" are reversed in his name and that comes from Mabus. I tend not to believe that." Whoa, he disagreed with the Wingnut Braintrust — do that two more times before the cock crows and he'll have to turn in his Crazy Prophet Union Membership Card (Local 777) and start working freelance.

7:54: "Now I know that some of you are probably skeptical that the Antichrist would be preceded and announced through music." Whoa, he nailed that one too! He really IS a prophet!

8:30: "It's interesting that they're ordered to worship the statue when the music sounds, and that's exactly what we're seeing today!" OK, as someone who has attended a Catholic mass a number of times in his life, let's not pretend that there is no combination of music and worship in every faith — if worshiping and music are to be mutually exclusive entities lest they herald the Antichrist, I'll have to start listening to Amy Grant in a whole new light.

9:30: "In conclusion, I don't think God is going to give us any more clues as to the identity of Barack Obama" Which is exactly why Joe Arpaio put retirees on the case — because if God can't handle it, a bunch of retirees can!

10:20: "Look at the happy, bouncy videos because those are the ones that God is going to use to tell us who the Antichrist is." ...And there it is. The nut of this whole video that he's missed this entire time, and it's been staring us in the face since 1987 — the Antichrist, without question, was Leonard Bernstein. Of course, he's dead now, so we'll just have to focus on the debauchery hidden in West Side Story.

So that was crazy. But if you happen to be buying what Tapley is selling here, you can check out his channel (and his weird, growing fascination with Psy — seriously, he has a few videos about him now) here.